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Orange Monte Carlo budget Android phone on sale now

The Orange Monte Carlo is out now from your favourite citrus-hued network: an affordable Android smart phone based on the ZTE Skate.

Richard Trenholm Former Movie and TV Senior Editor
Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.
Expertise Films, TV, Movies, Television, Technology
Richard Trenholm
2 min read

It's time to lay your cards on the table, double down and go all in: the Orange Monte Carlo is on sale from your favourite citrus-hued network. It's an Android smart phone for a price that means you shouldn't have to cash in all your chips.

The Monte Carlo features a 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen, FM radio and a 5-megapixel camera. There's an 800MHz processor inside, with 3G, Wi-Fi and DLNA connections to link up with the Web or a TV. It's basically a ZTE Skate with a different label slapped on it.

The software is Android 2.3 Gingerbread, the latest version of Google's software for mobile phones. You can add apps to your phone and move around widgets on your home screen, displaying live updates of everything from the weather to your friends' social network updates.

If you're a cinephile, the Orange Wednesday app is already installed for a free midweek cinema ticket. If you prefer to stay in, Orange Film to Go is a new service that gets you a free iTunes movie every Thursday.

The Monte Carlo features Orange Signal Boost, which piggybacks on nearby Wi-Fi hotspots to bump up your phone signal when you're struggling for bars.

You can go for Monte Carlo or bust on a range of contracts, and it's free on plans starting from £20 per month. You can get it on cheaper plans for £50, or on pay as you go for £150. 

The Monte Carlo is just the latest Orange phone with a metropolitan moniker. Other city-inspired blowers include the Stockholm, an affordable Android phone, and the Barcelona, which has a Qwerty keyboard with a little smiley face button for quick emoticons. 

Then there's the San Francisco, Lisbon, Rio, Atlanta, Sydney and Miami, a citrus-hued version of the phone offered by Orange's pink partner T-Mobile as the Vairy Touch II. We're holding out for the ultra-glamorous Orange Swindon.

How many of those cities have you been to? Tell us in the comments section below or on our Facebook page.